Having been involved in the pursuit of a Russian bride for several years, I’m convinced that a man should be meeting his wife-to-be in her home city for his first trip to meet her. This is especially true for a man that’s just starting to date abroad.

Fat Yuri is easy enough to spot and neutralize before he ever gets a chance to dupe you into sending him money. Ironically, he seems to be the person that bride seekers obsess the most about on the internet and try to develop all sorts of countermeasures against him, only to be vulnerable to a real RW that isn’t interested in marriage to a foreigner or even moving out of her country, and takes a man for almost everything he has.

The thing to remember is that it doesn’t take a genius to figure out that free gifts, shopping sprees and trips to exotic locations on one man’s dime are only one personal ad away. And chances are these disingenuous RW have known other RW who have done this or heard about it. So be careful. Your fishing in a sea infested with sharks.

You aren’t going to be able to tell the real genuine RW apart from the mercenaries that I’ve just described. They are both real women, they write and say the same thing in their profiles and letters, they’ll act the same way on webcam and they may even kiss you and sleep with you when you meet them. Heck, these mercenaries have even convinced themselves that they are serious and will fall in love with the right person, but in reality her standards are unrealistically high and there will always be a reason or rationalization why you aren’t the one. And hence, she repeats the cycle with the next sucker.

The best advice I can give you is to visit your favorite girl or girls in their home cities. This should screen out most of the girls that aren’t serious. A RW of a serious mindset will not mind where you meet her. If she likes you and wants to take the relationship to the next level with you she’ll want to introduce you to her family and close friends, so meeting her in her home city makes this convenient.

The mercenary, on the other hand, wants a trip somewhere exotic, with gifts, champagne and accommodation, all on your dime. She’s concerned about her reputation back home and won’t want to be seen by people who know her and see her serial dating western suitors on a monthly or weekly basis. That tends to damage her reputation. Flying out on holiday gives her more secrecy and plausible deniability. If she or her friends have experience with executing this scam, they’ll give you all sorts of rational sounding reasons why meeting in a different city is the best idea. She’ll suggest that meeting in Paris would be a nice midway point between your two home cities and would make the trip more romantic. She’ll say that there isn’t much to do in her city and it’s very dirty and not very safe and would be embarrassed for you to see how she lives. She’ll tell you anything to get you to agree to fly her to a city that she wants to go to. She may even dangle the prospect of having sex with you if you would only be her man and make her happy.

You must hold the line! Do not budge! So I strongly advise visiting your RW in her city for your first visit. I understand that for Americans, this can be difficult if she doesn’t live in the top tier cities in the FSU (ie: Kiev, Moscow and St Petersburg). This would mean more hours of flight time and more connections taking up more valuable time that you don’t have a lot of, but you must visit her in her home city first! It is worth it in the long run.

She’ll keep insisting but you must resist. Unfortunately, you can’t call her out as a scammer if she doesn’t back down. You risk offending a genuine RW and it’s not like a scammer would admit to trying to pull a fast one on you anyways. So don’t try and trap her and accuse her of anything. It won’t work. But what you can do is explain that you wouldn’t keep corresponding with her if you weren’t willing to visit her in her city or that your feelings should grow with the safety and support of her family nearby. Or feel free to come up with some other logical or diplomatic sounding reason that meshes well with your circumstances. A genuine RW will be impressed with your firmness and decisiveness. This is how real men act so you shouldn’t be afraid of losing her if you don’t bow to her suggestions. It’s only the mercenaries that you risk offending with your insistence and it’s best you find out now before you waste your time and money.

If you and your RW hit it off, then by all means, travel the world together. But the first visit should be in her home city!